


Hoarfrost and Sun

by jat_sapphire



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Christmas Card Exchange 2018, M/M, Older Lads
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 09:36:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20095150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jat_sapphire/pseuds/jat_sapphire
Summary: I think I didn't really understand this Christmas exchange challenge, but nobody complained, and I like the story.This is a cold morning at home, on Boxing Day.I've changed a word or three since the version I mailed.  Also added a comma for clarity.





	Hoarfrost and Sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [By Slanted Light](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=By+Slanted+Light).

On the bedroom window, the frost has spread, fingers and needles and holly leaves of frost tangling at the base of the glass and reaching upward. This crystal turns to fire as the sunrise catches it, orange as the heart of a candle flame in the spot that will be first to melt. Bodie lies watching it, one ear chilled, one shoulder warmed by the curly head that rests there, itself threaded with white. Bodie pulls in his chin to look. Ray's still fast asleep. His eyebrows are slightly drawn together, his lips a little pressed, as if he is examining his own sleep especially closely. There in the bent eyebrows, bushier than they used to be, are bread-brown and auburn hairs, yellowish and white, and Bodie rests his lips above them in the crease on Ray's forehead. He inhales Ray, holds Ray, hears the breath as it whistles a little through his nose, and when Ray wakes, Bodie will taste the sour wine from last night with just a few brandy fumes from their Christmas toast.

Another year. Bodie never believed they'd reach this peace, and every morning that they wake together, a deep warmth fills him, like that orange blaze in the window, and he marvels again. He misses wearing his holster sometimes, the weight of the gun that balanced him, and his metal hip and knee joints won't let him run as he used to do. The last time he used a rifle, the ache of the recoil lasted too long. He catches Ray rubbing his hands, not in excitement and happiness the way Bodie always has, but to soothe the big knuckles where arthritis has settled. His scars clench and harden. Bodie knows by the way Ray holds himself, solid and straight but careful of pain, and tempts him into the bathtub for its water jets, massages him afterwards with lotion or oil to soften the keloids. And then they make love.

Another thing Bodie had never expected was how good the sex still is, even as their bodies have changed. He'd loved the hard muscles under Ray's taut skin, the texture of his young hair, the wild energy of his young body. He'd expected to mourn them, even if in secret.

But the softening of Ray's body thrills him, draws his hands and his mouth, and he thinks Ray feels the same, judging by the way his eyes sharpen and burn and grow wet as they love each other. Under Ray's chin, under each arm, at his belly, along his thighs, the loose skin seems made for Bodie's pleasure, and he can't stop playing with it, fingering and stroking, kissing and licking, even taking it between his teeth and scraping along as Ray squirms and sighs. It takes longer for them to come, these days. That's an excellent thing, Bodie thinks.

Now Ray's hand strokes slowly over Bodie's chest and down his side, resting on the curve of his hip, and Ray turns his nose into Bodie's warmth and kisses under the bone, so Bodie buries his own nose in Ray's hair, still so thick even though the grey hair grows in stiffer than the brown.

"Good morning," Bodie mutters, and Ray rolls away but pulls at Bodie's shoulders so that when they kiss, Ray's flat on his back and Bodie covers him. 

"Good. More. Ning, to. You, too." Ray parcels out the words between kisses, and Bodie chuckles, trading sour air and sweet feeling. The sun has burnt through the frost, and light touches his back and Ray's face. The traces of all their years together are there to be read, pouches under his eyes and creases beside them, their slight blurring when Ray isn't wearing those heavy glasses.

Once, in his mercenary days, Bodie thought it would be best to die young and beautiful, but now he knows that beauty is this lined face he gazes at and the light that fills his own lungs. The best Christmas box in the world, this bed. "Let's stay right here 'till New Year's."

Ray laughs back and grabs Bodie's arse. "Or until you want some leftover takeaway."

"Let's be spendthrift. _New_ takeaway."

"What, get dressed?" Ray moves his hips and smiles.

Bodie puts his forehead on Ray's shoulder. "Leftovers. You, first."

Ray bites Bodie's neck.

They don't worry about food for some time. The sun falls in all the windows and paints their home with gold.


End file.
